03.16. THE RICH FOOL

THE RICH FOOL

Luke 12:13-21 This is yet another Parable in which our Lord illustrates the attitude He expects us to assume towards the world and its goods. It was occasioned by an unusually blunt exhibition of worldliness. Our Lord had been assuring His disciples that if they were brought into court, the Holy Ghost would teach them what to say. There is a man in the crowd to whom, at last, the words of Jesus begin to seem practical; courts, lawsuits, inheritances, were the staple of his thoughts, and the familiar words make him prick his ears. This ability to speak in courts is the very thing he has been seeking. If Jesus has it, He will possibly be good enough to use it for him, and so he will get his law gratis, as well as recover his share in the inheritance. This is a delightful prospect, too good an opportunity to let slip. And so, utterly blind to the kind of interests our Lord had at heart, utterly regardless of the crowd, possessed with the one thought that for months and years had consumed him, and seeing only that Jesus had great wisdom and justice, a remarkable faculty of putting things in their right light, and an authoritative manner, which surely not even his brother could resist, he blurts out—“Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me.” To one whose interests are religious, or political, or literary, or scientific, it is always amusing to see the unbounded importance which many men whose business is in money attach to their department of affairs, and the unaffected earnestness with which they discuss them. There is a solemnity in their manner when they speak of large sums; they seem to grow and swell with the amounts they name, a mystery and awe in their tone as they tell of big transactions, a pompous and grand dignity as they give the history of some bit of property, which is abundantly instructive. They turn from religious talk to this monetary style with the air of one who should say, Religion is all very well as a pleasing speculation or emotional tonic, but this other is the reality; let us now put aside all mere play of the imagination and turn to the substantial affairs of life. They constantly betray the understanding on which they live, the understanding that everything must give way to business, that it is the real thread on which life is strung. The egotism of worldliness was never exhibited in a more barefaced, naked, shameless form. Here had this man, through all our Lord’s conversation, been thinking his own worldly thoughts; what he gathers from all our Lord has been saying is, that He would make a good lawyer; and the best thing he can imagine that Christ, with His felt authority and goodness, can do for him, is to help him to a better income. He is sensible of Christ’s power; if he was informed that He had come down from heaven, he would not be disposed to question it. What is it then, as he stands in presence of this highest beneficence, that he will claim; what is it, now, that he finds his opportunity, that he will have? That half-acre his brother has kept him out of. So are men judged by their wishes and cravings. In many small towns you find harmless lunatics, who are glad to find a stranger on their streets whom they can lay hold of, and pour out their wrongs to, and repeat the old story of their claims to this estate or that title or handsome fortune. One would be glad to think this man was such an irresponsible creature, who, merely recognizing in our Lord a strange face, gave utterance to his one constant demand, “Speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance.” But covetousness and lunacy are always so nearly allied that this man can scarcely be considered as showing any special signs of lunacy. We can all detect in ourselves the germs of his character. We know how possible it is to retain a grasping disposition and avaricious purposes through very solemn converse with things spiritual. We know what it is to let some one important affair take such possession of our thoughts that, for the time, God and all spiritual things are as though they were not. Nay, do we not know what it is to calculate on the influence of Christ moving some one to do us a worldly advantage, which otherwise we could not hope for?

What a contrast did these two central figures of the crowd present! This man in whom no response whatever is found to anything spiritual, who can stand and listen to God Incarnate and be conscious of no new desires, no new world opening to his hope, — this poor shrunken creature on the one hand, and on the other Jesus, in whose eye no answering sparkle met the glitter of gold, who could listen to talk about disputed successions and undivided properties without the smallest interest, who could not be tempted to assume authority in affairs where the arbiter would not be forgotten. What our Lord continued throughout His life to do. He did here — refused to interfere in civil matters, repelling indignantly the idea that He was to be used as a petty magistrate. Not that the kingdom He had come to establish was to have no influence on the world, for it was destined to influence its minutest affair, but this was all to come about in a regular way; the hearts of men were to be Christianized, and they being so, all other things would feel the influence. Our Lord would not spend a word in composing that fraternal difference, but He would spend all the force of His teaching on extirpating the cause of the difference. “Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?” He said, but also, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness.” If our Lord, who saw in every case what was right to be done, refused to intermeddle, how much more should we limit ourselves to what is our own sphere, who neither clearly and wholly understand, nor are wise to act. A great part of the mischief that is done in the world comes of men overstepping the region with which they are familiar, and in which they are authoritative. It is amazing to hear with what boldness and unsuspecting confidence men pronounce upon matters with which they have had the most meager acquaintance.

It was the shock produced by this man’s naive display of his absorbing worldliness which made our Lord at once turn to the crowd with the words, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth.” This, then, is pointed out as the great snare of covetousness, that it tends to make a man identify himself with his possessions and rate himself by them. This is what our Lord here lays His finger on, as being especially disastrous in this vice; it blinds a man to the fact that he remains forever distinct from his possessions; that he is one thing, his possessions another; that he and they cannot be amalgamated, but must remain separate in essence and in destiny. That covetousness has this tendency every one knows. The man who values himself for what he has, and not for what he is, the man who fancies himself great because his possessions are great, is one of the most familiar objects of ridicule. But take heed, for there is a current setting that way which all of us feel the force of. Money-making is one of the most obvious and convenient goals which a man can choose for himself in life. Many men, when young, are sadly at a loss what to make of life, and are burdened with their capabilities. They know they can do something, but cannot determine what. They have not tested themselves, and cannot say what might be the prudent course. They have no strong natural bent towards any particular calling. Now to realize a competence supplies an aim, easily thought of and easily held in view. To make a fortune is an appreciable result, that a man may spend his effort on and measure his progress by. If it be made, there it is to show, it is actual visible achievement, a monument of labor spent. And in the course towards the goal there is a great deal of satisfaction, there is evident progress. A man is fallen very low indeed, if he is not at all concerned to know that he is making any advance one way or another. Now, men can very soon learn the art of measuring their progress, not by themselves, or their own personal growth, not by any ripeness of character and real internal acquisition, but by mere outward, material gain. They are content with some little glows of satisfaction that they are rising in the world, that they are able this year to command some luxuries that were last year beyond their reach, and especially that this actual thing, money, has increased in their hands. This is the way we practically come to measure ourselves by what we have, and to think that our life consists in the abundance of the things we possess. And what our Lord insists upon here, and seeks to impress us with, is the folly and disaster of so doing. He shows us that a man and his possessions are distinct; that a man’s life is not longer nor happier in proportion to what he has; that the man, the living soul, is one thing, the goods another; that he goes one way, they another; and that by no ingenuity can a man get himself and his property so united that he shall be beautiful, strong, lasting as it is. He may fill his shelves with the wisest and most elevating books, and yet remain illiterate; he may gather round him precious works of art, and be a clown and a boor; he may buy up a county, and be the smallest souled man in it; he may erect a mansion which will last for ten generations, and may not have ten years of life or ten minutes of health to enjoy it. A man’s possessions obstinately stand off from himself. Naturally we all feel that we are expanding and enlarging ourselves in extending our possessions, that we are more firmly rooting ourselves on earth; in each of them we seem to have a mirror reflecting ourselves, and each of them adds to our importance. Our Lord, therefore, presents to our view a man who has abundant, superabundant possessions, but has no life left. He had laid up goods in abundance, and reckoned on life in abundance, a long, full, lively life. He forgot the distinction, but it was made nevertheless. He is shown to us separate from his possessions, and transferred to a sphere where, like old-world coins, their value is unknown and they can neither be accounted, used, nor enjoyed. The rich man of the parable is represented as one of the exceptionally favored children of fortune. He had already become wealthy at an age at which he might naturally count upon having several years of enjoyment. His wealth, too, had been acquired, not by hard fatiguing labor, but in that line of life in which, more than in any other, a man’s time is his own, and he can work or play as he feels disposed. And especially it is to be remarked that no sin attached to his money-making; he had not made his money by gambling, he had not profited by another man’s disaster, no one was the loser for his winnings, it was the honest, unsullied gift of Heaven to him; his fields yielded enormously. But as a sudden and great alteration of circumstances is the best revealer of what a man really is, this sudden wealth disclosed a selfishness in this land-holder of which before he had perhaps not been suspected. The manner in which his wealth had come to him sets his ingratitude to God in a stronger light. Though his wealth had come to him through that medium which is most evidently at God’s discretion, so evidently that even men who are ungodly in other matters make some show of acknowledging that years of famine and years of plenty depend on God’s will, — though the gifts of God had come to him by the shortest route, as if from and out of God’s very hand, unhidden by any complicated transactions with men, — though his wealth had been built up by the elements, whose influence he could neither command nor restrain, — yet he seizes and claims as his own the fruits of his fields, as if he had been the maker of them, as if no one else had spent anything on them, and as if he had to consult no one but himself as to their disposal. What most men would have decency if not devotion enough to call a Godsend, he calls a windfall, and gathers up as his very own. A great success solemnizes some men; they hurry home and fall on their knees; they are ashamed of so much goodness coming to men so unworthy, and they hasten to make acknowledgment. Serious-minded men who engage in business not for the mere excitement and gain of it, walk in God’s presence, and bear in mind that the silver and the gold are His, that promotion cometh not from the north or south by the wind that happens to be blowing, and are therefore ever ready to say, What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? Can anything be more pitiable than the man who stands at his counting-house door and forbids God’s entrance while his balance is being struck, who does not care that God should know how much he made last year, but goes and prays that this God would give him success this year? Is it not astonishing how religious men who profess to live for God, should so carefully keep Him from interfering in their money matters, that is, in those matters round which their life really revolves? If we cannot go before God and frankly say, This is what I have made this year, and I could not have made it but for Thee and Thy help, — this is because we fear God will claim too much, and prompt us to use it as we are not prepared to do. Must there not be something wrong if we are not letting God’s eye and judgment fully and freely into every transaction we engage in, and every gain we make? In the case of this rich man, certainly his blindness to the source of his wealth and the bad use he made of it did hang together. He missed the opportunity of being God’s almoner, of dispensing God’s bounty to the needy. He did not recognize that it was the Lord who gave, and therefore it was not the Lord’s poor who got. The goods are his goods — he can’t get past that; he may do what he likes with them, he cannot see that there is any other vote or voice in the matter. In what sense the fulness of the world is God’s he has no mind to consider. His barns are bursting, he has more wealth than he knows what to do with; but one thing is certain, it must all be spent on himself. You would suppose he had never seen a hungry child in his life; you would suppose he had never met a beggar, or seen a blind man or a cripple in his market town. “Where shall I bestow my goods? “This was his difficulty, and yet he had the world before him, a world filled with want, abundant in misery, rich in cases of need. How many hundreds there were who could have given him very pointed and definite directions! how many who would quickly have relieved him from his perplexity! how many at that very hour, when he was wondering what he could do with his superfluity, were tortured by the opposite perplexity, wondering where they could get bread for these pale, appealing children, where they could find temporary aid to help them through a year of disaster! Among all the investments he had heard and thought of, there was one prospectus he had apparently not seen, that to which God has put His name, “He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord.” He did not apprehend that their bare and empty homes would be better houses of investment than his own locked and useless barns.

It is no more than what thousands of rich men, and of men who are not rich, every day do; he would not be in the Parable if he were exceptional. He is here because he is typical — typical of the men who, in considering how they shall invest their gains, look only to their own interests, — who, in considering their next step, have chiefly in view, what advantage can I win for myself? and who do not consider what good they can do. Life is constructed almost entirely on selfish principles: business is carried on upon the understanding that every man must look out for himself. One of the many benefits of war is, that it counteracts this selfishness; men learn to think of the common cause, of the public good, of the prosperity of the country, of the honor of their regiment. But in most departments of life men are prone to consider merely or chiefly. How can I get the utmost of good for myself? Often and often no other thought whatever is at the root of an investment, a transaction, an enterprise. The future is sketched in the mind, and I am the center, and all else is arranged so as most effectually to contribute to my joy. They are the few whose first thought it is, Is there any one I can benefit? and who so frequently think how they can promote the welfare and happiness of others, that at last this becomes a habit with them. When we consider the sleek and complacent selfishness of the man that could quietly propose to spend many years of comfort without a thought of others, we are almost glad to hear of his sudden disappointment. Doubtless the man might have died as suddenly if he had been better prepared. Had he invited all the poor of the district, to make a distribution to them of his surplus, he might all the same have died without seeing his benevolence enjoyed. But while there are few things more delightful to contemplate than the sudden painless departure of the man who has walked with God, there are few things so shocking as the sudden death of the sinner, who dies in passion with an oath on his lips, or never wakens from the insensibility of drunkenness. And what this Parable draws attention to is the vanity, the insecurity of worldly and selfish expectations. The man had one view of the future: God another. The man was saying, “Thou hast much goods laid up for many years:” God was saying, “Not another night shall you possess a single bushel.” What a satire is here upon man! Truly every man walketh in a vain show; he heapeth up riches and knoweth not who shall gather them. He builds his house and purposes to live and see good days, but a voice falls from heaven, Thou misreckoning man, the house may be built, but there will be no man to inhabit it. In his own thoughts the man was living through long years of ease and plenty, but the cold reality touched his warm expectations, and they withered death-stricken. The wind passeth over him and he is gone, and the place he counted his knows him no more. He was reckoning that no life could be worthy of comparison with his; that his shrewd plans had been fully accomplished, his utmost hopes exceeded, he was in the full triumph of self-gratulation, counting himself the most successful of men, the man to be envied; but this is God’s judgment: “Thou fool.” But might he not set even God’s judgment of his conduct at defiance? Was he not surrounded by tokens of his success, by proofs of his wisdom? Alas! in that very article and particular in which he had judged himself most wise, he was exhibited as conspicuous in folly. He had spent all his poor wisdom in providing for this soul of his an easy, merry, plentiful life, and he finds that so far from providing an abundant life for himself, he is unable to secure life of any kind, and would gladly exchange his position for the life of the meanest of his slaves. Stripped, naked, a bare, desolate soul, he passes from our sight, lost in the darkness of eternal remorse, his own voice still dolefully echoing the condemning voice of God, his own soul turning on itself with the everlasting reproach “Thou fool! thou fool!”

“This night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall these things be, that thou hast provided?” The answer comes from many a dissipated fortune, from many an auction room, in which are exposed the accumulations of a lifetime. There is one of the places a man proud of his possessions may moralize. The most precious and frequently handled gems of the departed owner are handed over to men who never saw him, or who made a jest of his avarice, or to men who rivaled him, and are now proud of living a year or two longer and getting as their own what they had long grudged to him. The books he read are now penciled by others; his plate his defaced and marked with other names; the very bed he lay on he needs no more; the clothes he wore he shall never again use; his mirrors, it is well they cannot now reflect him.

“So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God.” So that is equally senseless, and in an equally precarious position. But how many does this judgment hit? Yet not all; for some, on finding unexpected means coming into their hands, would have said within themselves. This is delightful, this will enable me to provide for this needy relative, this will at last put me in a position to make up for loss I unwittingly occasioned. This will precisely fit the wants of this or that benevolent institution that I know makes admirable use of its funds. God identifies Himself with all that is needy on earth, and spending treasure for the needy is spending treasure for God. And in so spending we become rich towards God, are provided for so far as our outlook Godwards is concerned. How is it then with us? Suppose all earthly possessions were suddenly to drop from about you, as they one day will, what would you have left? Would you then be rich or poor? Would the wants you would then begin to feel be amply provided for? Here we are now without our possessions, are we rich at this moment? Suppose we never got back to our homes, suppose we were by some great natural catastrophe at this hour separated from all that we have provided for this life, should we still be rich? Is there something so belonging to you that you can say, This is mine for evermore — mine through every change, through health and sickness, in life and death — mine though I be stripped of all that can be separated from my person, though I stand a bare spirit without connection with material things? Will you honestly give yourselves an answer to this question? What have I towards God? What that is certain to increase the nearer I go to Him? Am I so joined to Him that I can say, “I am persuaded, that neither life nor death, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?”